A day, oh what a day

I started out a little bit better today, I talked on Skype with one of my best friends and my partner at arvid&olof, and she made it all better. It's so nice to have a company together with a friend, I know that it cab be risky, but when it works it's so great! I tend to feel better when I can dwell on my mind going haywire, I think I sort of listen to myself in a better way. It's harder for me to get over the crazieness when the conversation takes place in my head... It's not totally good though to talk to someone when I feel anxious, I have to learn to ride the anxiety wave all on my own, in that way I learn that it's not dangerous or so unbearable that I will pass out. What I Do need to do is to find an outlet for it a bit faster, something else that I can occupy my mind with and break the bad pattern. Today that was cupcakes, chocolate with pink hart shaped sprinkles. 

Butterflies, anxiety and prosperety

Today has been quite a day, full of anxiety mixed with a lot of prosperety. It's a difficult combination for me because I sometimes have a hard time telling them apart, and I end up feeling not so good. I notice that I have come a long way with my work towards my anxiety, but sometimes my head goes bananas anyway. I'm not sure how I'm going to feel tomorrow morning, I'm just not sure if I have paid enough attention to it for it to leave me be tomorrow. It's like an annoying little brother, if you don't pay attention to it enough, or you just pretend to give it attention, it's going to come back again and again and again and REALLY make you listen... I have a fantastic appartment here in Berlin and I love to put fresch flowers in every corner, that beauty gives me a lot of pleasure and remindes me of how lucky I am and how much love I have surrounding me💗.

Carbonara Thursday

Today it's Thursday and some snow in the air. I decided to make carbonara, I love it! Nice with some comfort food at the end of january:), and a glass of red;). I'm listening to some feel good music as well, Eurythmics, Pet Shop boys, Fleetwood Mac and so on. It's nice to take a couple of dance steps between chopping garlic and cooking the pasta. 

HappyThursday! 

 

Sewing machine

I have decided to buy a sewing machine, but in the meantime, I knit:). I found this cute yarn with glitter, the dark blue was out today though so I'll continue with black... I really just wanted to knit, so I'm making a simple scarf.

New office!

Tomorrow I'm ditching my home office and moving in to an actual office:). I'm going to try it out for a while and see if I like it, I think I will. I have a clothing brand for kids called Darling oh my and a print studio, arvid&olof, with a friend of mine. There is going to be a lot of work for a while now so an office works out pretty well at the moment. 

Here are some pictures of my designs for the clothing line.

Cape!

I made capes for two of my favourite people in the world, H1 and H2, not their names really...but haven't asker them if they can be in this blog yet:). They are 4 years old and twins, and wonderful people. So:), I made them capes for christmas. Super easy, it took me 4 hours. Just make a half moon, cut out another half moon for neck space and sew it all together. 

Go crazy with fabrics, I put a shiny see through fabric on top of a goofy one:). 

Good luck!

Crochet

My crochet project is coming along, only dubble as much for it to be done... I like crochet almost better than knitting, it's nice to see a granny square actually be finished in one sitting so to speak:). I think I will do a threw for my bed, or just a blanket. There are a bunch of good instruction videos online if you are not sure how to start.

Happy weekend!

Bagels!

I tried to do bagels during the christmas break, it went ok. I didn't know that you boiled the dough? But that part worked pretty good, the dough was suppose to rise a bit more though. I made them with my favorite seeds, sesame:). I think that I will try it once more pretty soon, and maybe ad some more yeast... Well, the flour here in Berlin is not what it's suppose to be...so maybe I'm going to do really well with the bagel dough:). 

I'll see if I can find an english recipe to post here, I did mine from a recipe in Svenska Dagbladet.

Wake up, kick ass, repeat

2015, here we go!

I got this fantastic poster from my lovely friend, and actually also colleague:)! We have a new project that we work on with our firm, so the information on the poster is very much a must at the moment.arvid&olof

So, lets start the new year! I'm going to be writing posts three times a week to start out with, the fall was not that organized so the posts came really close or not close enough... I'm very much looking forward to the spring....I will start my indoor garden here in Berlin:):), and then in April move it to Sweden. I also have some nice sewing and kitting projects, can't wait. I will also se if I can manage to get the sourdough to work with me...took a new jar with me from my mom when I was home for christmas, I also have some new fancy Italian flour that I'm going to try out:)

Happy Monday!

Long and gray day in Berlin

Today is very gray in Berlin, haven't seen anything like it really....and I'm from the west coast of Sweden. I'm a bit in a "under the weather" kind of a mood, need to sheer me up some how. One of my best friends is coming to visit me tonight!! She is staying for a few days and I'm really looking forward to it, we have lots of things to talk about! But in the mean time I have to do fun stuff to pull me up, a new sourdough ground and bake cookies is on the agenda I think. I'm still not happy about how my sourdough bread turn out, I'm trying a new type of flour and hoping for that to be the solution:). I also thinking a lot about an office that a friend and I are planning to start up, very exciting! We have found a great location but need to get a hold of the realtor, I keep my fingers crossed that it's still available! 

So, this foggy and misty day, my thoughts wonder off to the spring and a very much wanted trip to NYC and this exhibition MOMA

Fall garden and new project

Last week in Sweden was foggy and misty, I love that! I could be inside and bake, read, do projects I can't do in Berlin and so on. I helped my dad one day with ripping up a carpet in one of the rooms, that was a lot of fun:)! It's great to see an immediately change when you work on something, I think it's same for me with gardening. I guess that's why I like to do things that are hands on in my spare time, just like a lot of people, I work a lot on my computer. 

I also had time to check out the rose bushes, that still has a flower!, check out the potato storage and be amazed over my parsley that looks better then ever, yay:)!

My next project here in Berlin is coloring fabric with vegetables...the first one is red cabbage that I found on this great website: Remodelista tablecloth-dyed-with-red-cabbage

Oh yes, batik!

This was fantastic, so fun! I have never colored fabric before and have never been near batik technique, but That's going to change:). I test colored two duvet, one with clips and one with string. If anyone is reading this...feel welcome to share any ides about how to color a fabric from black to light grey in batik, like a gradient. 

Weaving = bowl of comfort

I can do so many fun DIY projects when I'm in Sweden, not that weaving is a do it yourself project really.... it's art at it's best! I stopped by a local weaving "club" in Ulricehamn the other day with my mom, waving is a hobby of hers since way back. It was like walking into a huge hug of comfort! I don't know why, but those kind of places where 55-80 year old women meet and do arts and craft, they just come at out with a huge chunk of welcome. They know so incredibly much about handicraft and it seems like the most natural thing to do in the world, I can't wait to learn more about weaving and start up a blanket or a rug of myself. I can go on and on about this and how wonderful the feeling is, but I'll give you some pics instead:).

 

Batik...not

My plan for today was to color fabric with batik technique, my plan fell apart though. Since you have your hands right in the color, rubber gloves are a pretty good idea... And I did'nt have any. But, tomorrow is a new day and, Batik day!

It was really nice and frosty this morning, can't wait for the snow to come:). 

Gnocchi

I love italian food, I can eat it every day of the week:)! I made gnocchi the other day, they turned out pretty good. I realized that I need more arm strenght...after mashing 8 potatos, my arms were pretty sore. But after that, it's cake. I used a pretty hard potato, the kind you get in the spring eats flour... But if you still want to make gnocchi in spring/summer, which you will because it's so delicius, buy a firm type at the farmers market. 

About 8 potatos

2 egg

About 4 dl wheat flour

Mash it all together into a dough, then cut it up in small pieces (sugar cubes) and put them in flour and rest for an hour.  It only takes about 1-2 min for them to be ready in salty and oily water. 

I fried them for a couple of minutes after that in butter and herbs.

Autumn

I'm one of those who love love love the fall (or autumn)!

My dad and I was out in the garden the other day and pulled up some beets, salsify and parsley to have for dinner, it's fantastic to be able to basically make a whole dinner out of your back yard! We made beets with chèvre in the oven, so delicious! We cooked the salsify and served them a bit warm with lemon butter. We had something else with that....hum, can't remember....oh, freshly baked sourdough bread and some more chèvre:).

Cook five beets (red, polka etc)
Cut them in wedges 
"sprinkle" a chunk of chèvre on the beets 

Put in oven for about 10 min in 175 c degrees.